﻿Annual Report of the Council. xlvii 



his time to these experiments ; but who, finally, in spite of the 

 success of the trials, decided that the apparatus was unsuitable 

 for the service. The principal reason given for this decision 

 was that the weight needed for the "steady platform " could be 

 more usefully employed in carrying an extra gun or extra 

 ammunition. Though naturally disheartened by this unexpected 

 rebuff, Mr. Tower proceeded to adapt his steady platform for 

 use on cross-channel steamers, the idea being to provide " steady 

 seats," and thus rob the Channel passage of its present terrors 

 for the bad sailor. He was engaged in this work at the time of 

 his death. W. H. B. 



By the death of Dr. Alexander W. Williamson, F.R.S., 

 which occurred last year, the Society has to lament the loss of 

 one of its most distinguished honorary members. i\lthough the 

 number of separate contributions which Williamson made to 

 science was not by any means large, yet he exercised a remark- 

 able influence on the development of Chemical Theory. The 

 son of a clerk in the East India House, Williamson was born 

 on May ist, 1824. As a child, and throughout his boyhood 

 his health was always delicate, although he ultimately grew up 

 to vigorous manhood. One of his eyes, however, was per- 

 manently useless, and with the other his vision was very 

 imperfect ; also, his left arm was partially paralysed. As a 

 practical chemist these physical disadvantages must have greatly 

 interfered with his work, although, as Professor Thorpe remarks 

 in his admirably appreciative obituary notice of Williamson 

 (Nature, May 12th, 1904), this very limitation of his physical 

 powers probably conduced to his eminence as a speculative 

 thinker. Williamson was, for many years, Professor of 

 Chemistry in University College, London, where he succeeded 

 Graham. His reputation mainly rests upon what has been 

 well called his "epoch-making" paper on the "Theory of 

 ^Etherification," which was published in 1850. In this paper 

 he not only proved, by a series of admirable experiments, what 

 are the real changes which occur during the ordinary process of 



